x Thought this was pretty interesting m'self, figured a couple of folks 'round these parts might like to read it. Thoughts? Commentary? Competing studies? Anything to add? Does this all seem like basic stuff to you, or were you surprised?
This is quite an interesting topic, I do not completely agree with it. I do think that we are more similar then society wants us to think, there is always such a divide like "Women are confusing to men, men just think about sex", there are always amusing pictures on facebook or other sites highlighting the extreme differences between the genders. However, we are similar in so many ways like through our fears or desires but I think both socialisation and evolution have had a part in dividing us: If we look at the evolutionary approach to gender roles then it talks of, due to women biologically investing more in children (like carrying them in their uterus' and breast feeding them) and men being stronger, our physical characteristics making us more suited to certain situations which then lead to them sticking and that is what we have today. Since men were stronger then they would go and hunt while the women stayed at home and reared the children due to a more caring nature. Of course this is just a theory, an unfalsifiable one at that but the alternative is saying that these traits caused women to become more empathetic and men to become more systematic (empathy-systemising theory suggested by Baron-Cohen). Another theory was suggested related to why the neanderthals died out (close relations to homo sapiens) which was because they didn't divide their gender roles, so females were out hunting along with their male counterparts whilst pregnant which may have caused a lot of deaths. Again, this can't be proved or disproved. There have been families to raise children without telling anyone the gender of the child as they don't want any socialisation to get in the way of their development, they want them to choose for themselves how to behave and not be bound by gender stereotypes. I can see their logic and understand where they are coming from but I think gender is an important part of our society as it allows us to grow into our gender and yes, there are differences and some are quite large. When children are developing, they need to identify themselves as a gender in order to progress in that category, once they have then they will observe the world and learn what is strictly "female" and what is "male" behaviour. They will pay attention to their own gender and add such behaviours to an in group caterogry e.g. they see a female nurse, they see that a nurse must always be female. Anything that doesn't fit or is part of the other gender schema then they ignore it (Gender schema theory posed by Marting and Halverson). You see kids all the time making references to how the other gender is "gross" or "boys have cooties" or "girls smell" but I suppose, does this really mean there is such a huge difference, this more shows what our society have taught us. I think the main difference between females and males is brain structure, there has been research into it and has shown men to be much better at things like spatial awareness and systematic problems while females are generally better at empathetic and caring tasks. This doesn't mean that these traits are exclusive to that gender as men are caring and woman can solve problems but this is just on average. I'm female, I'm not great at maths but I can do scientific subjects and in fact I'm probably better at them then things like English literature and I am probably better then a few of the boys in my chemistry class as well. So, I still think there is a difference in our brain structure but the division is emphasised greatly by society and a lot of humour is put out there making fun of typical gender roles which probably enforces these ideas. Sorry if this is muddled xD I had a lot of things I wanted to talk about, I haven't put them all down but I hope this makes sense O.o
What makes us similar and different is our growth, or lack thereof. Like different ages, we are all at different stages of growth as people, characters, mentality and so on, it's rare for people to keep one mind set for a lifetime and we commonly shift and adapt, as is part of human nature to do so in order to survive an ever changing world. Everyone is different, something we should all have been taught or picked up and learnt. Is being different any different between sexes? No. At best there is just a different majority and minority in each, like women being more common care givers and men on average being more violent. But it's not like there are exclusions to either one, that men can't be care givers or women can't be violent. So don't worry about it, treat people the same, with an open mind.
Saying men and women fall in to different categorise is silly really since we can have men who are very lady like and woman who are seen as one of the guys. I see it like this since my two closest friends both of different genders act and sometimes dress as the opposite gender. Also in this day and age it's impossible to say all men are the same and al woman are the same because it can easily been found on the internet one person can be completely different from someone of the same gender, even if they are siblings e.g the older sister likes going out drinking, wears but female cloths and listening to RnB while the younger sister is more of a tomboy bookworm who enjoys quiet nights in and listens to Celtic music. As for brothers one could be a ganger wigger (couldn't think of a better word for it sorry) who listens to rap while his older brother could be an over achiever ready to go to uni. Also the examples I just gave can be gender swapped.
